{"id":4171,"date":"2008-09-01T11:54:42","date_gmt":"2008-09-01T18:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=4171"},"modified":"2008-09-01T19:51:38","modified_gmt":"2008-09-02T02:51:38","slug":"were-eating-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4171\/were-eating-ourselves\/","title":{"rendered":"We’re eating ourselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was installing a new Genie<\/em> garage door opener one Friday evening on my very first house back in 1980-whatever. Basking in ‘pride of ownership’ and eager to….<\/em><\/p>\n

Pause. <\/em><\/p>\n

Deep breath. <\/em><\/p>\n

Now, let’s be honest Mr Petro<\/em>… (inner voice)<\/p>\n

Okay. Let me begin again:<\/p>\n

I was spending an entire weekend trying to replace an old Genie<\/em> motor with a new one I had purchased, on a dump I never should have bought in the first place, with just a screwdriver, a hammer and some vice-grips; the Holy Trinity for those of us born without the dominant handyman gene<\/em>. This was back in a time before Fixer-Upper<\/em> actually meant Tear-Down<\/em> but I was a young insurance salesman born with the recessive sucker gene<\/em> so what did I know? Rookie sales guys are<\/em> the biggest suckers. Everybody knows this. My Realtor certainly did.<\/p>\n

And to this day I’m still not sure if she was actually my<\/em> Realtor. She shanghaied <\/em>me from her Open House I’d happened upon one Sunday, hustled me into the back of her 2-door Caddy (the passenger side front seat was stacked with MLS binders the size of phone books, briefcases, and boxes of direct mail envelopes. Piles of loose, legal length paperwork and blue carbon sheets rose from the floorboard to the glove box) and shot me over to another, much cheaper Cape Cod on the northeast side of Baltimore, blowing cigarette smoke in my face the rest of the afternoon and staring me down in silence until I signed the paperwork in her office and wrote an initial earnest money check to her brokerage firm. I was nowhere near my car or I would have run like Updike’s Rabbit<\/em> but like I said earlier, I was shanghaied<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Truth is, had I hung on to the place (I shuffled it off to another sucker 24 months to the day later; old tax code) it would have been paid off a few years ago and worth about $350,000 today for the land value alone. I paid $65,000 and almost cried every month the $495 mortgage payment was due. Now, I do<\/em> cry every Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was installing a new Genie garage door opener one Friday evening on my very first house back in 1980-whatever. Basking in ‘pride of ownership’ and eager to…. Pause. Deep breath. Now, let’s be honest Mr Petro… (inner voice) Okay. Let me begin again: I was spending an entire weekend trying to replace an old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-real-estate","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6944,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/6944\/pin-money\/","url_meta":{"origin":4171,"position":0},"title":"Pin Money","author":"Geno Petro","date":"February 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"1960 \"Genie... here's a quarter. Now run down to the corner and get me a Hershey's from the store.\u00a0 You keep the extra coppers for pin money.\u00a0 Don't tell Big Gene.\" My father's mother was sneakier than any of her twenty-one grandchildren when it came to copping a candy fix\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2207,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2207\/agents-using-the-term-mls-in-their-url\/","url_meta":{"origin":4171,"position":1},"title":"Agents Using the term “MLS” in Their URL","author":"Russell Shaw","date":"November 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The following email was sent to me by Steve Westmark. I posted about Steve and the Minneapolis MLS back in April. Seems the Chicago MLS got the same idea but has now changed their mind. Or should that be \"minds\"? Or \"numb skulls\"? I really do not understand how any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Stupid Factory","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/Stupid%20Factory.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3635,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3635\/utopia-eureka-eugene\/","url_meta":{"origin":4171,"position":2},"title":"Utopia, Eureka, Eugene!","author":"Geno Petro","date":"August 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Now where was I...? Oh yeah, poking fun at my fellow real estate consorts for exhibiting groveling-like behavior in a buyer's market. But that was three weeks ago and as we all know, a lot can happen in 21 days. It was also the last time I personally wrote a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10117,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10117\/unchained-melody-fields-of-gold\/","url_meta":{"origin":4171,"position":3},"title":"Unchained Melody: Fields of Gold","author":"Teri Lussier","date":"October 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Hocking Hills. It's beautiful land- old forests, rolling hills. It was a treat to take a day away from normal life and I love driving through Ohio with it's farmland and small towns. I'm a Realtor. Under all is the land.","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"100_6808","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/100_6808.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13529,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/13529\/its-415-pm-do-you-know-where-your-realtor-is-a-consumers-guide-to-using-social-media-the-supervise-your-goof-off-employee\/","url_meta":{"origin":4171,"position":4},"title":"It’s 4:15 pm. Do you know where your Realtor is? A consumer’s guide to using social media to supervise your goof-off employee.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Your mortgage lender just called. The appraiser is standing outside the home you're hoping to buy, but there is no key in the lockbox. The lender called you so that you could call your Realtor. Your Realtor in turn can call the listing agent, and then someone can get over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Abusing Twitter"","block_context":{"text":"Abusing Twitter","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/abusing-twitter\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":660,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/660\/dual-agency-smack-down-real-estate-in-real-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":4171,"position":5},"title":"Dual Agency Smack-Down: Real estate in real life . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Kicking this back up to the top. I wrote this on November 19th, 2006, but nothing has changed since then. But, as it happens, our friends at Agent Shortbus have taken up the topic of dual agency, albeit without reference to anything rigorous or dispositive. We have a whole category\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dual Agency"","block_context":{"text":"Dual Agency","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/dual-agency\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4171"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4185,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171\/revisions\/4185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}